Ginny Goldman, head organizer for ACORN in Texas, said the group already has 100 volunteers ready to mobilize the day after a homeowner gets a 24-hour notice of eviction. She said the supporters will send a message saying: “Please don’t remove these people’s furniture. Please don’t evict this family. We are here to support them. They don’t deserve to be thrown out in the street.”

She said ACORN’s primary goal is to work out long-term, affordable loan modifications for families, adding that the group has been working with borrowers and lenders to that end.

The group also wants a moratorium on evictions until state and federal officials address the mortgage crisis.

So far, Goldman said, five families have signed up for the Houston effort.

Goldman would not say how volunteers plan to prevent constable deputies from removing residents .

“The plan is not to go to jail,” Goldman said. “The plan is to save people’s homes and prevent families from being foreclosed on. We are hoping that it doesn’t come to that, where people are being hauled off to jail because they don’t want to leave their homes because they feel they have been unfairly taken from them.”

Matthew Festa, a South Texas College of Law property law professor, said it is illegal to resist a court-ordered eviction.

“If ACORN or the tenants refuse to vacate based on a lawful order, we’re getting into a criminal trespass or some kind of contempt charge,” Festa said. “They would be in the wrong in the eyes of the law.”

Donna Hawkins, a Harris County assistant district attorney, said it is a class B misdemeanor to interfere with the lawful duty of a peace officer, a charge that has a range of punishment of up to six months in jail and a fine up to $2,000.

Michael Butler, chief deputy for Precinct 1 Constable Jack Abercia, said people can be arrested for interfering with a court order, engaging in a sit-in or stopping movers or deputies.

“They are perfectly within their rights to protest people losing their homes,” Butler said. “And, basically, in this economy, we truly understand what the country is going through and we are sensitive to what they are feeling,” Butler said. “But if we have a court order to be there, then we have to carry out that order.”

Constable Victor Treviñ o, who met with ACORN officials about the foreclosure evictions, said he will support people “in any legal way to help out because I think the hardest thing for me is to evict someone or to move them out.” But he said people need to start the process long before they get an eviction notice .

ACORN will formally announce its plans at a news conference Thursday at the home of Sara Chavez, a 40-year-old nurse and single mother who bought her home four years ago.

Chavez, who has tried to ask the bank for a lower payment, said her monthly note has gone from $1,270 to $1,876. She said she is behind on payments, but has not received an eviction notice.